1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the art of topiary, and more particularly, to a new and improved technique for building an apparatus for training shrubbery and a method for constructing shrubbery shapers having a wide variety of forms and shapes from open mesh wire. The shrubbery shaper constructed by the technique of this invention can be manufactured in substantially any selected configuration and can be quickly and easily positioned over selected plants and shrubbery to train the shrubbery or plants in a relatively short period of time. The shrubbery shaper can be placed over one or more plants, hedges, shrubs, flowers or other shrubbery, including combinations of these plants, and used to train the plants as they are trimmed to conform to the configuration of the shrubbery shaper.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In landscape gardening, the art of clipping or trimming of shrubs or plants to decorative shapes such as those of animals, birds or geometrical forms is well known. Heretofore, the accurate and decorative shaping of plants, flowers, hedges and shrubbery has been chiefly limited only by the imagination and skill of the person doing the trimming. Because of the difficulty of creating a desired configuration by such shaping techniques in the topiary art, this type of landscaping has been rare and extremely expensive to produce and maintain. Accordingly, various mechanical aids have been devised by those skilled in the art to produce such attractive topiaries. U.S. Pat. No. 1,895,282 to R. Fisher discloses a "means for shaping hedges" which makes use of a flat wire screen mounted on a pole and positioned over a hedge in contact with the hedge limbs and leaves. The limbs are caused to be interwoven in the wire screen openings to ultimately cause a solid growth of hedge in and around the screen openings.
A similar use of open mesh wire and the like has been made in shaping planters from wire and plastic screen members, filling the planters with planter mix, moss, and the like, and planting flowers and plants in the planters. The flowers and fruit project through the mesh openings in the screen, and are then accessible for viewing and/or gathering.
A shortcoming which is inherent in prior art hedge shaper devices such as that disclosed in the Fisher patent lies in the fact that it is characterized by a two dimensional screen which is supported by means of a pole or stake over a hedge to be trained. Such devices are difficult to use and require a considerable amount of time to implement since each branch to be trained must apparently be meticulously and periodically threaded and rethreaded through the screen as the hedge grows. Furthermore, the device seems to be designed to beautify hedges only, since this type of growth appears to be the only type capable of being shaped by the screen in any useful and definitive manner.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a technique for manufacturing a shrubbery shaper of substantially any shape and size which includes the steps of forming an appropriate pattern; cutting a section of open mesh screen wire having a selected mesh size into a selected width and a sufficient length to conform to the perimeter of the pattern and form a frame; shaping the frame so cut into the pattern configuration by bending it to conform to the shape of the pattern; cutting side panels of open mesh screen wire to close the sides of the molded frame; planting appropriate shrubbery at a selected spacing to correspond to the shrubbery shaper so manufactured; and placing the shrubbery shaper over the planted shrubbery in order that the shrubbery might ultimately fill and conform to the shape of the shrubbery shaper.
It is another object of this invention to provide a shrubbery shaper which is capable of shaping substantially any shrubbery, including flowers, plants, trees and hedges or combinations thereof into a desired configuration by using a pattern formed in a selected shape.
It is another object of this invention to provide a three dimensional shrubbery shaper having a selected configuration, which shaper can be formed and assembled by means of an appropriate pattern and open mesh wire, and placed over a selected plant or plants to continuously form the growing plant or plants into the pattern configuration.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a technique for forming a shrubbery shaper which includes the use of a selected pattern and a selected quantity of open mesh wire screen, one strip of which wire is formed in the shape of the pattern for use as a frame member and other segments of which are used to close the side openings created when the frame member is formed to the shape of the pattern.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a shrubbery shaper pattern kit which includes a pattern formed in a selected configuration for constructing a shrubbery shaper and complete plans and specifications for constructing the shrubbery shaper using open mesh wire of selected diameter and mesh size and which is readily available at substantially any hardware store.